'Your early morning call, sir'

Photo courtesy geologist Dr Mark Quigley.

Being heaved out of your bed in the dark by unseen forces is the freakiest way to wake up.

Last time I recall anything as dramatic was in 1968 in the Inangahua earthquake that also hit Christchurch.

In the pre-dawn dark this morning, my family crouched in the doorway as a monstrous train seemed to rumble across the roof and back again.

It was the same for thousands of people across the city.

Glasses, books, chimneys tumbled, water pipes ruptured, electricity went out.

Then the aftershocks. Every few minutes for the first hour, rattling the house again and again.

They're still happening this afternoon though less severely and less often.

We found torches, and went outside under a starry silent sky, a sliver of moon shining as if nothing had happened.

Groups of neighbours formed knots in driveways checking on older or single folk and inspecting the damage. We began calling family and friends to check if they were ok and out-of-town family began calling us at daybreak.

Every other chimney
In the light of day it became obvious in my older central city neighbourhood of St Albans that every other house with a chimney had lost it in crumpled heaps down the roofs.

Water bubbled up through the concrete, and in my case up from the front lawn, creating small volcano-like shapes as the silt was forced up.

Bulges appeared in footpaths and in the middle of roads. In some places large holes appeared. Power came back on for some of us about 9am but other parts of the city were still blacked out mid-afternoon.

In my work for a news organisation I travelled across the city.

The post-war housing seemed in better shape than the older neighbourhoods with 100-year old pipes and aged structures.

Some places were under water and blocked off.

Damage worse close up
In the central city there was plenty of evidence of brick buildings collapsed but many more properties where damage was at first less apparent but on closer inspection, very significant.

The brick wall fell off the side of my favourite Janes Wine Bar and facades and walls are cracked.

Mid-morning, civic leaders, MPs and Mayor Bob Parker held a media briefing in the Christchurch Art Gallery, the headquarters of Civil Defence.

He said all the right things, urging people to look after each other and exercise common sense. Police began to impose road blocks around inner city streets and tourist started walking from their hotels dragging suitcases as they looked for alternative places to go. A handful of eateries were serving coffee and food.

But there is a silver lining, Central Christchurch MP Brendon Burns told me as we stood in the bright sunshine outside the Art Gallery.

The region will require one of the biggest rebuilding and infrastructure programmes for seen decades. Some of those owners of earthquake-prone buildings prevented from demolishing them have had their work done for them.

The ones that survived have proved their worth.

See more photos, graphics and NBR's full report, here.